Please note that the NBI for England and Wales does not contain monumental inscription records.

Burial records are transcribed and computerised mainly by family history societies although a few individuals contribute records. These records come from different types of sources: parish registers, bishop's transcripts, earlier transcripts or printed registers. Each society appoints a coordinator who recruits volunteers to transcribe the burial records. The coordinator maintains a cumulative society burials database which the society may publish at any time of their choosing. Data collection progresses either by the use of a Shroud computer program (designed for the project) or by any program that the coordinator chooses, for example, Excel or Access. Whatever the program, a definition of the NBI database is supplied. Periodically the coordinator sends the most recent batches of burial files to the NBI Data Manager for further checking with syntactical validation.

The aim of the Project is to cover all burials found in registers in all locations (parishes) throughout England and Wales. Family history societies may choose the parishes and time intervals they transcribe. Although coverage in terms of years and locations is now much more extensive than the burials published previously, there are still gaps because not all family history societies are able or willing to join the project due to restrictions to access records, a lack of volunteers or other commitments.

As an ongoing project, further collections of records are encouraged and continue to be received by the FFHS Data Manager. A substantial number of member societies that had not submitted records for the First Edition became involved subsequently. In consequence, although the First Edition contained 5.4 million, and the Second 13.2 million, the recent Third Edition contains 18.4 million. This Third Edition covers some 9100 burial locations in 50 counties.

The NBI includes the following information(where available):

Forename(s) and surname of the deceased

Day, month, year of burial

Age

Details of the place (parish) where the event was recorded

The county where this is located (pre-1832 list of counties)

The society, group or individual who transcribed the record

The decision to exclude certain useful items of information from the NBI such as relationships, abode and occupation was a demand of most participating family history societies at the NBI planning stage. This is in accordance with the notion that the NBI is an index and not a full transcription.